Her mind drifted to the mortally wounded German, injured by the same grenade that struck Sasha. Was he still alive in his pit, still calling for his mother while the rain poured down on him? The thought made her physically sick.

She squatted under a tarp with the men until, two hours later, they were assigned buildings to quarter in. Field rations were only dry biscuits, so she postponed eating. She needed to find out about Sasha. And about the others, for that matter.

She approached the platoon leader. “Request permission to look for a friend, Comrade Sergeant.”

But Commissar Semenova, who seemed to be everywhere, had overheard. “No one’s to leave their assigned bivouac. Understood?”

Cowed, she backed away and returned to her spot. She sat, frustrated and worried, but finally exhaustion overcame anxiety, and she dropped off to sleep leaning against her pack. But a few hours later, someone shook her by the shoulder.

“You, Zhurova, are you wounded?” The platoon leader pointed to her left leg that was soaked with blood. She realized with disgust that her blood had seeped down into her trousers.

“Do you need to go to the medical station?” he asked impatiently.

Medical station. A way to find out about Sasha. “Yes, Comrade Sergeant. Shrapnel wound.”

“Go on over then, and get yourself bandaged. It’s the building at the corner, where the lights are. Then report back here for orders.”

“Yes, Comrade Sergeant.” Still carrying her rifle, she lurched toward the spot where lanterns were hanging, the first floor of a building whose upper floor had been blasted by artillery. Stretcher bearers were plodding toward it carrying a wounded man between them.

As she strode into the medical station a figure turned around to face her. It was Alexia. And just behind her, Kalya. The relief she felt seeing them drained when she registered their drawn expressions.

“Sasha?”

“Dead. Fatima, too.” Alexia pulled her out of the way of the stretcher bearers.

The two women who’d saved her from torture and death. Gone. The news hit her like a stone. She stood awhile with her friends, staring vacantly at the medics, nurses, stretcher bearers, moving in and out of the station. There was no point in asking what happened. War happened.

“Where are you quartered?” she asked the others numbly, not wanting to leave them.

“Never mind that,” Alexia said. “Are you wounded?” Like the captain, she pointed at Mia’s pant leg.

“No. Menstrual blood. I need to wash, but how? Where?”

Obviously relieved to have another task to tend to, Kalya took her by the arm and pivoted her around. “There’s a well over there. Come on. We’ll get some water, and you can clean up in the latrine.” She snatched up a bucket from outside the medics’ station.

It was a good solution that took their minds off their dead comrades. Setting her full bucket on the ground in a corner of the latrine, with her friends standing guard, Mia wiped down the top of her trousers, then dropped them to wash herself. The second half of the original bandage was still in her pocket and she tied it in place, rinsing out the blood-soaked portion with the last of the water. She would have found the whole procedure disgusting at home, but she recalled the blood pool in the grenade pit, the blood of the dying. This, at least was “living” blood, and cleaning it was a mere inconvenience.

“Come back with us for a while. Your sergeant won’t be looking for you just yet.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” She followed them to a shed close by the medical station. They leaned their three rifles against the wall and squatted on the ground. Kalya began to roll another cigarette, and Mia now understood the value of the habit. It might scorch your throat, but it soothed the mind to have something to do.

“At least the Fritzes have cleared out,” Mia said weakly, just to break the silence.

“Yeah, but they make us pay for every kilometer they concede,” Alexia said.

A woman came through the door and dropped down onto the floor next to them.

“Galina, finally off duty?” Kalya asked, and offered her a puff of her cigarette.

“Just for a few minutes.” She took a long draw and handed it back. “Sorry about your sniper friends. If it’s any comfort, Sasha went right after they brought her in, and Fatima was gone when she came in. Not much pain for either one. Be glad of that. I’ve also got a couple of burn patients. They’re not going to make it either, but they’ve got some bad hours ahead before they’re free.”

“Yes. I guess I should be glad for small things. Burning. Uff. My worst fear.” Kalya winced. “Anything but that.”

Galina nodded. “Goes for animals, too. A few weeks ago, we’d set up a first-aid station next to some stables. The attack planes dropped incendiaries, and everything caught fire. The medics, even the walking wounded, ran to the stables to pull out the horses. Bad enough to watch our men die, but it seemed even worse to hear the screaming of the horses. Anyhow, we got ’em out. Every one of them.”

Mia was faintly cheered by the story. Some small rescue of the innocent. A temporary one, of course.

Galina stood up. “Time to go back on duty. I’m also going to give blood. It gets you an extra ration of sugar and meat. Did you know that?” Without waiting for an answer, she strode from the room.

Mia stood up as well. “I’d better return to my unit,” she said glumly. “The commissar is watching me, and I have to be in place when the orders come. Bye, then.”

“Yeah, bye. See you in the next shit spot on the map,” Kalya said.

Mia wandered back across the square to her own bivouac, brooding, feeling the warmth of her own blood between her legs, hoping her flow would taper off the next day.

Blood. Given and lost. Galina’s, hers, Sasha’s, Fatima’s and the dying German’s. The war in microcosm.

Chapter Eighteen

The next shit spot on the map was a village whose name Mia didn’t learn. She only knew that a stream blocked their access to it and her platoon was holed up with the colonel in a house at the foot of the only bridge. The rest of the division spread out behind them, waiting for the way to be cleared.

The colonel peered from the window through binoculars and cursed. “According to the map, that’s supposed to only be a stream. And if this were July instead of May, I suppose it would be.”

Mia could see what he meant. The constant rain had caused it to rise and flow quickly, and there was no telling its depth. An old stone bridge had somehow remained intact, but the retreating Germans held it.

A machine-gun team was set up behind sandbags right at the bridgehead, providing an effective block. Even she knew they couldn’t advance without artillery, and they no longer had artillery.

The colonel cursed again and spoke into his field telephone. “Send up one of the snipers.” And while they waited, she peered from the corner of the window along the sight of her own rifle. She could see the two piles of sandbags and the muzzle of the machine gun protruding from the split between them, but nothing more. No sense in wasting her ammunition.

Some ten minutes later, Kalya crept up behind them. “Reporting, Comrade Colonel.”

“Good. I need you to take out that machine gunner. Can you do it?”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” she said automatically, and crouched below the window. She squinted into her rifle scope. “I can see between the sandbags, but he’s careful to stay out of the way. I’ll have to wait him out.”

“Take as long as you need.”

But at that moment two men emerged rolling a mortar across the bridge and setting it up next to the machine gun behind the sandbag piles. Only the tip and a hand that dropped a projectile into it were visible. A moment later, the mortar bomb struck the building they were in, and part of the wall to their right collapsed. Kalya fell back, struck on one side by brick and shrapnel, and her rifle flew out of her hand.

Mia dropped her own rifle and rushed to her side. Kalya raised a hand. “It’s my shoulder. I can’t feel anything in my arm. Shit. I’m useless.”

Without thinking, Mia grabbed the fallen rifle and scrambled back to the window. Peering through the scope, she was astonished how clear everything was. She saw the enemy in bits and pieces, a green cap here, a helmet there, but all was beautifully in focus.

The German mortar team shouted triumphantly, and a pale hand dropped in a second projectile. It fired, rose in a short arc, and struck in much the same place as the first one had, pulverizing the remaining bricks. But through the scope, Mia could see the mortar man raise his head above the sandbags for a split second to see where his missile struck.

With unthinking calm, she caressed the trigger and the gun fired, jolting her slightly with its backward thrust. With her eye glued to the scope, she could see the soldier fall forward over his mortar. His companion lifted him off and shoved him to the side, but that gave her enough time to draw back the bolt and aim once again. The second man raised the projectile to drop it in, and she struck it, causing it to explode in his hand.

Just then she felt someone press in beside her. Alexia also took aim and fired through the split between the sandbags, killing the machine gunner as well. With the two heavy guns now silent, the Russian troops charged, and setting up a storm of fire, they streamed over the bridge.

* * *

Another day, another village, another setting up of quarters for the night. The road sign, which miraculously had remained standing through all the years of the war, said Karmayshevo, but since the Germans had torched the houses, the place was little more than a church and a scattering of barns. The medical station and the officers laid claim to all of them.